Sara Jane Olson, the St. Paul resident and former member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, was released on parole this week from a California women’s prison after serving about six years for her role in a plot to kill Los Angeles police officers by blowing up their patrol cars.

Olson, 61, had been sentenced to 12 years in prison but served only half that time. Like most California inmates, Olson earned credit against her sentence for working in prison. She served on a maintenance crew that swept and cleaned the main yard of the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, prison officials said.

Released Monday, Olson must serve a three-year parole period, although prison officials declined to provide the conditions of her release.

Reached at her family’s home in Palmdale, just north of Los Angeles, Olson declined to comment. Her husband, Dr. Gerald “Fred” Peterson, said only that he was “relieved.”

A woman who answered the phone late Thursday night at a number listed for Olson’s daughters in St. Paul said only, “There’s no comment whatsoever. Thank you. Bye.”

Olson’s attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, said, “We’re thrilled she’s out and can return to her family. For someone who was not a danger or a threat to society, it was six years too long.”

Such words brought a strong and immediate rebuke from Los Angeles police, who see Olson in a far harsher light. She “attempted to murder LAPD officers by bombing two police cars. She needs to serve her full time in prison for these crimes and does not deserve time off for working in prison,” said Tim Sands, president of the Police Protective League. The organization represents the city’s 9,300 rank and file officers. “Criminals who attempt to murder police officers should not be able to escape justice simply because they have good lawyers,” he said.

The child of a middle-class Palmdale family, in the mid-1970s Olson joined the violent band of radicals best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. She was charged with taking part in a 1975 plan to plant pipe bombs beneath police cars in retaliation for a shootout with Los Angeles police that left six SLA members dead.

The nail-packed bombs never detonated after the triggering device on one malfunctioned. Olson didn’t wait around to make her case in court and disappeared.

Olson — born as Kathleen Soliah before changing her name — left California and married Peterson, an emergency room physician. The couple lived in Zimbabwe before settling in St. Paul. Olson, who had three daughters, lived in a Highland Park home and performed in local theater productions.

Olson’s decision to flee inadvertently led authorities to discover Hearst, who joined the SLA after being kidnapped. Shortly after Olson disappeared, Los Angeles detectives tracked her to two San Francisco apartments. When they raided them, agents found Hearst; Olson’s brother, Steven Soliah; and three other SLA members.

Olson’s second life ended abruptly in 1999, when she was apprehended in St. Paul soon after being featured on TV’s “America’s Most Wanted.”

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when her case was still moving toward trial, Olson decided to strike a plea deal in the failed bombing attempt, saying she feared she would not get a fair trial in such an atmosphere. Prosecutors scoffed at her reasoning, pointing to reams of documents, fingerprints and other evidence they had amassed. The deal aborted a trial that had promised the saga of a fetching high school pep-squad member turned fugitive and a revisiting of the social tumult of the 1970s.

Olson pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing a destructive device with the intent to murder and also struck a deal in a separate case, in which she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for participating in a Sacramento bank robbery, during which another SLA member killed a customer. For the murder conviction, she received a one-year sentence. For the botched bombings, Olson initially was sentenced to five years and four months, but that term was extended to 12 years by a state prison board, after it determined she fell into the category of a “serious offender.”

While in jail, inmate W94197 reported for work in the prison yard shortly after 8 each morning. She earned 24 cents an hour emptying trash cans and tidying up. Peterson visited about 10 times a year, bringing at least one of the couple’s three daughters each time. Prison rules allowed one kiss and one hug at the start of each visit, and a second at the end.

Olson had no discipline problems while in prison, according to Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Now on parole, she must remain in Los Angeles County, Thornton said, but she has submitted a request to be allowed to live elsewhere — presumably St. Paul, where her husband still lives.

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